Truth Costs

Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University, one of America’s leading institutions, candidly wrote, "I want atheism to be true. And I’m made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t that I don’t believe in God and naturally hope that I’m right in my beliefs, it’s that I hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God. I don’t want the universe to be like that."¹

Aldous Huxley is even more candid in exposing that his personal biases - even more than the evidence - influenced his rejection of God. In Ends and Means, he writes, "I wanted to believe the Darwinian idea. I chose to believe it not because I think there was enormous evidence for it, nor because I believed it had the full authority to give interpretation to my origins, but I chose to believe it because it delivered me from trying to find meaning and freed me to my own erotic passions."²

Huxley, an intelligent and erudite thinker, did not embrace evolution because of the evidence.  Nor did he reject God for the lack of it.  Rather, he wanted to rid himself of the burden of trying to find meaning. He wanted no sexual restrictions.  In other words, he did not want to pay the cost associated with belief in God. For Huxley, disbelief was not a matter of the mind, but a matter of the heart and will.

~Abdu Murray, What Truth Costs

Nagel and Huxley, how much like these two are we in our leanings?  Do we choose our worldview and personal convictions from knowledge or from preference?  Or from fear of the implications?  Troublesome questions on every side of the issue.

“Until the heart is open, the ears remain closed.”

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¹ Thomas Nagel, The Last Word (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 130, emphasis added. Interestingly, Nagel has recently released a book in which he concedes to some degree the credibility of the evidence for a non-material cause of the universe. See Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
² Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (London: Chatt & Windus, 1946), 310.

Water, no ice

"The findings are striking," NOAA's Kathryn Sullivan, acting administrator, says. "Our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place."

Scientists are reluctant to point directly to the cause of the changes in our climate, but the annual reports are typically used by the federal government to prepare for the future, and in June president Obama used his climate address to direct government agencies to begin planning for decades of warming atmosphere and rising seas.

Go to the NOAA dashboard for updated information

The biggest changes in the climate in 2012 were in the Arctic and in Greenland. According to the report, the Arctic warmed at about twice the rate of lower latitudes. By June 2012, snow cover had fallen to its lowest levels since the record began. By September 2012, sea-ice cover had retreated to its lowest levels since the beginning of satellite records, falling to 1.32 million square miles.

That was, the report noted, 18% lower than the previous low set in 2007, and 54% lower than the mark for 1980.

The changes were widespread on land as well with record warm permafrost temperatures in Alaska and in the Canadian Arctic. In July last year, Greenland experienced surface melting on 97% of the ice sheet. The record-breaking events indicate an era of "new normal" for the climate, the researchers said.

"The record or near-records being reported from year to year in the Arctic are no longer anomalies or exceptions," said Jackie Richter-Menge, a civil engineer with the US army corps of engineers. "Really they have become the rule for us, for the norm that we see in the Arctic and that we expect to see for the foreseeable future."

The Arctic ice sheet has shrunk so much that National Geographic is having to make what it calls “drastic” changes to its atlas.

That ice melt was also a major cause of sea-level rise, the report found. Global sea levels rose to record highs last year, after being depressed during the first half of 2011 because of the effects of La Niña. The average global sea level last year was 1.4 inches above the 1993-2010 average.
"Over the past seven years or so, it appears that the ice melt is contributing more than twice as much to the global sea level rise compared with warming waters," said Jessica Blunden, a climatologist at NOAA's national climatic data center.


And for those persistent naysayers regarding climate change, just put the ice back and we'll call it even.

(Did we cause the warming trend with our use of fossil fuels?  The cause of warming is a continuing question, but the fact that it is happening appears to be rather well established.)

Your Choice?

Bars of soap along with other common products;
corn meal, rice, salt, sugar, oil, pasta ...

At the store, we've got plenty of choices for bathing products. They're all one or another variety of soap, usually with stuff added.  They're almost all necessary, of course.

For comparison, note the blue bars in the photo (right).

That's soap in Africa and perhaps for much of the world. The large bar is cut off in chunks and used for laundry, for bathing, for hair washing, and pretty much everything along that line.  It's not bad, really.  It's used in school and home and at the river where they do laundry and dishes, and it works fine.  

So how much does our culture shape us?  We know you have to have at least five kinds of soap, and you can't dry clothes without using a softener sheet, and men and women can't use the same deodorant.  True?  OK, five kinds of soap: bath, hair, dish, laundry, and nice smelling stuff for shaving.  And they all use similar ingredients with stuff added for this or that reason; perhaps mostly for smell.

Do we maybe over-do it a bit?  The proliferation of stuff in our lives is in some measure force-fed to us by a profit-driven marketplace and social acquiescence.  Much if not most of it all isn't worth the time and effort, much less the money.

You can choose, despite the social and marketplace pressures.  You can strive to have everything and lots of it, like your culture insists, or you could choose ... to live simply, and leave some room in your budget thanks to the absence of excess.  Then you could do things with your kids or help others or put your kids through school without going into debt, perhaps.  Or travel.  Thoughts?

Just an aside, the cost of the bathing products (top, left) would pay for the products and school uniforms (top, right) plus tuition and fees for a semester, around $45 or so.  Feel like joining the assistance effort?  It's tax deductible!

And on a fun note, I took some kids with me on a trip to a little grocery store for momma.  One pre-teen discovered the nice smelling bath soap (Dial or Dove or something like that); she figured it was really special, so she excitedly asked if I could buy a bar for the kids to use.  Of course.

What matters now?

What matters most?

Lots of time gets expended on less important things. Life tends to consume whatever time is available.

Today, there are people near and far that can and perhaps should be the joy of our lives.  

(The phone rings; it's Walter from Kenya!  He calls to say hello and thanks because we send him a little money each month. He's a polio survivor, lives in a wheelchair, and visited me when I was injured and bedridden in Kenya. He lives in absolute simplicity. He's never asked for anything, and he's taught me more about character and love than most folks in my life. His speech is difficult because of the polio, but we talk regularly and laugh a lot, and he prays for us every day.  He's a treasure.)

All you need is love

Despite our light-hearted use of the phrase, the concept is ancient and apparently true.  Love is all you need.

A group of Harvard researchers, on a mission to uncover the true roots of life fulfillment, conducted a 75-year study that reached the same conclusion.

The Harvard Grant Study, led by psychiatrist George Vaillant, followed the life trajectories of 268 male students in order to answer life’s universal questions of growth, development, value and purpose. Vaillant considers the most meaningful finding of the study to be that a happy life revolves around loving relationships. 

Vaillant explains that there are two pillars of happiness: "One is love. The other is finding a way of coping with life that does not push love away."

It's worth noting, the study results describe mature love, genuine commitment, and the associated sacrifices of meaningful relationship between friends, family, and beyond.  

There are so many important things in life; success, income, shelter, security, health, food, education, a place in community, justice,  ....  But love leads them all, and if it's missing, they don't make up the difference.

Earlier work, see here.

Inequality by the Numbers

(Two societies compared)
Curious what differences you might see between the two?  

In 'A' vs 'B', we find:

• The cost of living is higher, crime rate is lower.  
• Taxes are higher, life expectancy is longer.  
• Student/teacher ratios are lower, health is better.  
• Utilities cost less, shoes cost more. 
• Health care system works, children are more likely to be in school when they should be.
• Percent of population in prison is one-tenth of ours.
• A house costs more, the poverty rate is 80% lower.
• Potatoes and apples cost less.

Would I want to live there?  No, but just for reasons of preference.  They're good folks, I'm sure, but their winters are cold, and all my roots are here anyway.

The point of it all is to note differences and improvements that might be made.  Problems can have good solutions, perhaps more than are currently on the table in our painfully partisan discussions.  Civilizations grow and change, hopefully for the better.